Ahpra advertising guidelines: a plain-English guide for allied health practices

Check whether the rules apply to you

The guidelines apply to anyone advertising a regulated health service, not just registered practitioners. That includes practice owners who are not clinicians and companies that own clinics. A regulated health service is one provided by a profession regulated by one of the 15 National Boards, which include occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, podiatry, chiropractic, osteopathy, optometry, nursing and midwifery, and medicine.

Some allied health professions are not regulated under the National Law. Speech pathology, exercise physiology and dietetics are self-regulated through their professional bodies, which are members of the National Alliance of Self Regulating Health Professions. If your practice offers both kinds of service, the Ahpra rules apply to how you advertise the regulated ones, and general consumer law on misleading claims applies to everything.

Know the five core rules

Under the National Law, advertising for a regulated health service must not be false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to be. It must not offer a gift, discount or other inducement unless the terms and conditions of the offer are also stated. It must not use testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business. It must not create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment. And it must not directly or indirectly encourage the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.

The guidelines also say claims about how well a treatment works need acceptable evidence, and that listing conditions a treatment can help with, without qualification, can be misleading. Titles matter too: using a protected title, or suggesting registration, specialist registration or qualifications someone does not hold, is an offence.

• No false or misleading claims.
• Terms stated with any gift, discount or offer.
• No testimonials, no unreasonable expectations, no encouraging unnecessary use.

Understand testimonials and reviews

The guidelines treat a testimonial as a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of a service used in advertising. A clinical aspect is a symptom or reason for seeking treatment, a diagnosis or treatment, or an outcome. Comments about customer service or communication style that do not mention clinical aspects are not treated as testimonials.

Who is responsible depends on control. If you control a website or business social media page, you are responsible for reviews that appear or are republished there, which may mean turning off review features you cannot moderate. Ahpra says you are not responsible for removing reviews on platforms you do not control, such as Google reviews, but you should take care when engaging with them, as that may count as using a testimonial. Never quote patient success stories in ads, on your website or in social posts.

Know the penalties

Breaching the advertising requirements is a criminal offence. Ahpra's advertising guidelines page says the maximum penalty per offence rose in 2022 to $60,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate, and that since July 2024 these higher penalties apply in all jurisdictions, including Western Australia. Registered practitioners can also face disciplinary action.

Ahpra says it is a risk-based regulator that only takes regulatory action where there is a risk to the public, and it publishes an advertising compliance and enforcement strategy. That is not a reason to be casual: fixing a non-compliant website, ads and social posts after a complaint takes far more time than getting them right first.

Run a checklist over every channel

Apply the same checks to your website, Google Business Profile, social media, Google Ads, flyers and emails. Ads and social posts are where problems usually creep in, because they are written quickly and aim to persuade.

• Website: no patient stories or quotes about results; service pages describe what you do, not guaranteed outcomes.
• Offers: any discounted first appointment or free assessment states its terms clearly.
• Titles: only titles each clinician is entitled to use; no implied specialist status.
• Social media: review features you cannot moderate turned off; no shared posts praising clinical results.
• Google Ads: no testimonials or outcome promises in ad text; claims match the landing page.
• Before and after images: avoid them where they imply a typical or guaranteed result.

Remember Google's health ad rules too

Google has its own healthcare and medicines advertising policy, and its personalised advertising policy restricts targeting people based on health. In practice, that means no remarketing lists built from health information and no uploading patient lists to ad platforms. Some health-related ads may also have limited reach, so check the status of your ads after changes.

Seam Media manages Google Ads for NDIS and allied health providers with these rules built in from the start. Our allied health page explains how we work, and the packages page sets out what each package includes.